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Had they done so, Blues could be on a par with the likes of Midlands rivals Stoke and West Brom right now.

“I tried to build it up to be one of these ‘proper’ Premier League teams, because Stoke have proven over time that they’re a really good Premier League club, the likes of West Brom... I don’t think we were too far away from that,” he told talkSPORT.

“If we’d just maybe recruited a little bit better, that year we won the Carling Cup, we’d possibly have done the double - what I mean by that is staying in the Premier League for years to come, with much better stability.”